Applications requiring light energy and, in some embodiments, laser energy, may benefit from the use of solid state light sources such as laser diodes which are commonly available, reliable to operate and relatively cost effective as a laser energy source. Such devices may include a plurality of laser emitters in a single bar that emit laser light simultaneously in a common direction. In addition, multiple solid state or laser emitter bars may be disposed in a stacked configuration so as to generate even higher power levels.
Laser diode bars are often used for communication technology devices, medical applications and other applications such as military applications where it is desirable to couple the output of all the emitters of a single solid state emitter bar or multiple bars in a stacked configuration into a single optical fiber or other optical conduit. Typically the emitters of such solid state emitter bars generate significant amounts of heat during operation and are spaced from each other to allow sufficient cooling without the need for elaborate and expensive cooling systems. Such spacing improves the cooling of the bars, but may make coupling of the output beams from the multiple emitters difficult. The coupling of such output beams may require a large number of expensive optical components as well as a large area for mounting such optics.
In addition, for some applications, beam reformatting optics may be used in order to further enhance the coupling of the emitter output into a desired device. However, such beam formatting optics may further complicate the coupling process and reduce the brightness of the overall output of the bar by generating gaps between output beams of the individual emitters of a laser emitter bar or bars. One reason for this is that for some beam reformatting optics the size of the beamletts passing through the beam reformatting optic must be significantly smaller than the center to center spacing of a source laser emitter bar or the like. As such, brightness may be lost in the downstream optics.
What has been needed are methods and devices for maintaining the brightness and power of an output of multiple emitters of a laser emitter bar after the output has been reformatted. What has also been needed are devices and methods for coupling reformatted output beams of a laser emitter bar that use fewer optical elements or components.